


Cole

by yoshizora



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Genre: Torna: The Golden Country DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 07:03:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: Addam is ruined by his failures, and Jin is no longer who he used to be. Minoth finds that tragedies tend to make the most compelling stories.





	Cole

**Author's Note:**

> minoth was such an... oddly interesting character, it's a shame he didn't get more depth in the main story. his arts and specials are so damn stylish at least
> 
> also i loved his english voice lmao, it sounds like he's just shouting all the time

Addam’s back aches when he tends to the crops. He still feels so vulnerable in these simple clothes, without a single plate of armor on him, but that sort of thing would just weigh him down and make him sweat more beneath the sun. And there’s no reason to wear armor anymore. Not anymore.

He crouches down on his knees to inspect a stalk of Belloat Grass. It smells fresh, feels real between his fingers, young and green.

“I don’t know if this farming thing really suits you, Prince.”

His brow drips with the sweat of the day. Tending to a plot of land isn’t quite as easy when he lives alone. The others who have settled in this small village with him always offer their help, but Addam never fails to turn them down.

He doesn’t have a good excuse to refuse them. He just…

“Well, you know I was never one for the frivolities of a royal lifestyle.”

Minoth leans against a tree, protected from the sunlight by the leaves. “You’ve settled, eh?”

“The war is over.”

His back aches from the weight of all the guilt and grief, still fresh like a wound that hadn’t scabbed over. That lie— it’s bitter upon his tongue, and Addam wants to bark at Minoth to go away, go away and leave him be, what more could he do to twist the blade further?

“Prince.”

“You don’t need to call me that anymore, Minoth.”

“Alright, Addam.” Minoth straightens up and takes slow steps over, careful to walk around the mounds of dirt where seeds have been planted. “Your uncle is alive, did you know? Zettar took up residence in Indol. I thought I’d snoop around to see what he’s up to, but if you’re so disinterested in the affairs of the world now… well, I guess I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Don’t try to give me any favors. Please.” Addam feels the plant between his fingers, back still aching. It’s been hurting ever since. “Like I said, the war is over.”

“No, it ain’t.”

“Just go, Minoth.”

“Like hell I will!” Minoth snarls and kicks at the dirt, disturbing a young stalk of Belloat. Addam immediately reaches over to straighten it up, pat it back into the soil safe and secure. “Where is she, Addam? Where’s Mythra?”

“Lora didn’t tell you?”

“Lora’s dead.”

Addam lets go of the grass. He stares down at the soil, his pulse drumming in his ears and his chest and throat, shock but not disbelief pushing bile up his throat. He would… Hugo would tease him for crying like this again, bursting into tears like a child.

“Killed in Spessia. Along with all the other Tornan refugees who had managed to evacuate. _Indol_ was looking for you, and that girl. And your uncle, dear Lord Zettar, gave them the tip that you’d be there with them. But you weren't. What were you doing while that went down?”

He… was sealing away the girl who called herself Pyra. And then it took two full days to trek to the deepest depths of the Crucible, then more days to recover and establish what could be called home with the few Tornans who had directly followed him here instead of stopping over Spessia. Those few fortunate ones. The ones who always offer to help him with his crops when his back starts to ache. He’d been wondering what had been taking the others so long to reach Leftheria.

Addam remains kneeling, head bowed.

Because he had made sealing away the Aegis his priority, he’d sent Lora to Spessia in his stead, and so…

“So you’re here to chide me for my mistakes. Is that it, Minoth?”

“Actually, no.” Minoth’s tone softens just barely enough to take the sharp edge away. He thwacks Addam’s shoulder, wordlessly telling him to stand up. “I came here to drop off someone. Hey— alright, you can come out now. Yeah, it’s okay. C’mon.”

Addam stares, and stares, because he can’t quite comprehend what’s happening, but Mikhail is standing there, beside Minoth, with so much anger in his eyes that had never been there before. That can’t be Mikhail. The boy he knew was quiet and coolly indifferent, not… this, a coiled snake ready to bite.

His blood freezes to ice. Mikhail stares back at him, his knuckles white at his sides.

“Mikhail?”

“Yeah, I found the kid while I was doing my personal reconnaissance around Indol,” Minoth says, patting Mikhail on the head. “That man messed him up real bad. But still, he’s one of the lucky ones. The others that’d been worked on… well, I’ll spare you the grisly details. Consider _that_ my last favor.”

Minoth nudges Mikhail forward. Addam rises up to his feet, unsteady and shaking.

“I cannot—“

“ _I_ can’t, and you know as well as I why that is.” Minoth taps his tainted Core Crystal. “Moving around and hiding from humans is no life for a kid, especially one that’s been through as much as this one has. Someday, I’ll settle down like you, but that day ain’t gonna come anytime soon.”

Mikhail’s glare is so damn accusing that Addam is _afraid_ , afraid of this reminder of his failures and the boy he had come to see like a son—  _Milton, oh Milton_ — but what on Alrest is this? The great hero and former Lord of Aletta, quaking in his boots before a child. The tears drip steadily down his face and meet at his chin. Addam bites his tongue.

“You can give him a proper home, Addam.” Minoth’s voice is low. “The kid needs it.”

He can’t refuse, because he’s meant to be a hero. But he knows Mikhail wants this even less than he does. He can see it in the cold absolute zero of his eyes. Addam leans down to speak to him at face level, still crying.

“Alright… I’ll need to set up another bed. But in the meantime, you can take mine. Okay, Mik? Everyone in the village is lovely. You’ll make new friends here.”

“I don’t want new friends.”

Minoth closes his eyes for a moment then takes a step back. “I’ll be sure to visit now and then.”

He leaves, finally, but now Addam doesn’t want him to go anymore. He wants to cry out at his retreating back and plead with him to stay. Minoth may very well be the last person he could call a friend.

 

* * *

 

Minoth can’t quite say that things have changed for the better after Malos’s death and Mythra’s mysterious disappearance. Indol is swift to pass their judgment upon Alrest, even without the divine might of Amalthus’s Aegis, and amidst the destructive hunt for Mythra, people take advantage of the chaos to continue looting and pillaging and hurting and killing.

But, he also sees that tiny seed of hope struggling to take root. Addam’s village is flourishing. It’s small and quiet but that’s all it needs. And Torigoth is in the stages of repair. What few survivors that had escaped from Spessia flee to the winds, and with that, Minoth would choose to believe that the blood of Torna would never truly run dry in this cruel world.

The seasons pass and the years change, but he does not change. People throughout Alrest never seem to grow weary of talking about the war that had destroyed Torna, poor Torna, and of the great hero who had managed to succeed atop a mountain of failure.

The people of Genbu, in particular, takes a great deal of enthusiasm in kindling the stories. He hears from traveling merchants that Addam had paid a visit to their kingdom. Minoth isn’t entirely certain if it’s true or not— he never did visit Leftheria again after leaving Mikhail with him, but he supposes it doesn’t particularly matter.

A year passes before he encounters Jin.

Minoth approaches him like he would approach an old friend. The Saffronia trees in Uraya are in full bloom, but he gets the feeling that Jin isn’t here to admire them.

“You,” he starts, trying to hide the tremble in his voice. “Haven’t aged a day. Ha! ’Tis a joke. Blades don’t age.”

Jin looks over his shoulder, shoulders heavy. He’s completely unreadable beneath the mask. Minoth opens his arms wide, to show that he doesn’t mean to be a threat… though he’s not sure _why_ he feels the need to do that, because Jin had been a trusted comrade…

But Lora had been confirmed dead…

It doesn’t take long for Minoth to connect the dots. His arms drop.

“… Son of a bitch.”

Jin turns back to watch the petals’ gentle dance in the air.

So Minoth stands beside him, solemn in his sympathy, willing to wait until Jin either decides to speak up or leave.

Oh, what a reunion.

“It was my own choice,” Jin says, hoarse, as if he hadn’t used his voice in ages.

“Ahh.”

Lora had once said… that as long as the memory remains in someone else, a person is never truly gone. Dead, perhaps, but not _gone_. Minoth remembers that day when she said those words to that glassmaker’s apprentice in Auresco— ah, damn, he can’t remember that girl’s name. Did she make it out, he wonders…?

He thinks that, perhaps, this isn’t what Lora would have wanted, but what would he know? He wasn’t her Blade. Jin was. Is.

Minoth extends a hand to catch a petal. It slides off his palm and over the steep drop of the cliff, beginning its long journey to the shallow waters far below them.

“Why did you choose to help Addam?” Jin quietly asks.

The world is a horrible, twisted sort of hell, according to the man he loathes and owes for this accursed life. And according to Malos, this is simply the natural state of things, and it must be wiped clean of all its impurities. Destroyed. Ruined. Given to salvation. Minoth squeezes his brows together.

“If there was anyone in the world I could’ve put my faith in, it was him. Addam.”

Jin is quiet. Maybe the dust got back into his throat. So Minoth continues speaking, just to fill the silence.

“I used to be a pretty cynical guy, you know. My Driver… ahh, maybe I took too much influence from him. But in a way, becoming like this was sort of a blessing. I don’t have to be near him anymore. I’m free to do whatever I like and think about whatever I like. I got pretty damn defiant, come to think of it. Maybe I just wanted to prove that he was wrong about everything, that people could be good and the _world_ could be good. Addam was that symbol of everything I wanted to believe in.”

“Traveling and fighting alongside all of you…” Minoth tilts his head up, gazing at the rain of pink. “Were the best days of my sad, sorry excuse of a life.”

“You still seem pretty cynical to me.”

“Guess I’ve still got a ways to go, then.”

“Was he wrong, then?” Jin looks at him, still inscrutable. “Are humans worth saving?”

People are still fighting despite the Aegises no longer roaming the lands. Indol continues to crush anyone who opposes their divine decree. He sees Drivers hurting their Blades. He sees Drivers loving their Blades. He saw the gentle people of Addam’s little village and the empty hatred in Mikhail’s eyes. The world isn’t so simple to be represented in black and white.

Maybe, he can now understand Addam’s weariness and his desire to just tend to his plot of land and live a quiet life.

“Your Driver would say they are, yeah.”

“Yes.”

Minoth had been freed when he became a Flesh Eater. But this wretched being standing beside him is a prisoner of his own loyalty and love. He… pities Jin.

Jin carefully removes his mask, holding it between his fingers so gently as if it were made of brittle glass. The pure red of his Core Crystal is finally revealed to Minoth.

That look in his eyes is not unlike what he had seen in Mikhail.

“I want her back,” Jin says, his voice wavering. “As long as I live with my memories of our time together, there is hope for her.”

Minoth doesn’t really think so, but he won’t say it out loud.

“So, what’re you gonna do from here on out?”

“I’ll find a way.”

Up the World Tree, to the Architect, to make him provide answers all those mournful _whys?_  It’s exactly what Amalthus had done so long ago. Or Minoth is just misinterpreting Jin’s intentions.

“Seems like it’ll be a long, lonely journey. Mind if I write a story about it? Ah, kidding, kidding, don’t give me that scary look…”

Lora had enjoyed giving their group pep-talks after battles. _We’re the strongest party in all of Alrest!_ Things like that. But now— she’s dead, and Jin is like this, and Haze had been stolen. Addam gave up. No one knows where Mythra is. Emperor Hugo is still being mourned by his people, and someday Brighid and Aegaeon will be re-awakened with no recollection of their time spent together.

Minoth catches himself wondering what the _point_ of it all is. He believed in Addam, he truly did. Maybe he wouldn’t be like this if Addam had been his Driver instead. Could things have ever turned out differently…?

“If only we could go back to those good old days, huh?”

Jin puts his mask back on.

“Uraya’s beautiful…” Minoth muses. “The view is absolutely inspiring. Maybe I’ll stay here for a while. I hear Fonsa Myma has a nice theater.”

The petal rain is captivating. When Minoth looks beside him after some moments of silence, Jin is no longer there.

 

* * *

 

The years go by and Addam’s aches only get worse. Fonsett Village grows but remains as small and quiet as it ever was, and the outside world continues to sing songs of Addam, the legendary hero of the Aegis War.

But no one here sings songs of the war and no one bothers Addam.

At the worst of nights, he wakes up in violent chills with his wife’s name upon the tip of his tongue, and he weeps.

“Nuncle, how do _you_ deal with it?”

Azurda soaks in the warm clouds off the edge of the island. He opens one eye and lowers his head, neck creaking and crumbling. “More nightmares, Addam?”

“They don’t— they never stop. I want them to stop.”

“It is… different, for Titans and humans. Centuries, compared to decades…”

“Mikhail still hates me.” Addam stares down at his hands. They’re rough and dirty and dry from all the field work. “He sleeps under my roof and eats the food I offer, but that look in his eyes has never changed.”

“That boy has suffered,” Azurda rumbles. He rests his head upon the grass, sighing a breeze that disturbs the young trees. “And you continue to blame yourself.”

“It _was_ my fault. All of it. Because I was a coward. A weak, spineless coward.”

“That self-flagellation is very unlike you, Addam.”

He runs his hands over his face. The stubble on his face is beginning to take form into a beard, and he can practically feel the wrinkles. No longer is he young and at his prime. Now he has to allow the other villagers to help tend to his crops.

Mikhail never helps. He just sits there all day, seething in his anger. He looks barely any older than he did when he had first arrived despite the years and that unsettles people, so no one else tries talking to him.

That night, Addam dreams of Lora. They’re sitting at a bar together at a café in Auresco. It’s warm and crowded and the conversation in the place is dim. At his other side is Hugo, and when Addam looks both ways he sees Mythra bickering with Brighid at the end of the bar, Jin and Aegaeon chatting, and Minoth reading a story to Haze. Lora comfortably pats his shoulder and smiles up at him, mouthing out words that are meant to be encouraging and warm. Then, her smile turns a little sad and she cries. Addam cries as well. When he wakes up, he actually is crying, and the bed at the other side of the room is unoccupied.

As if in a trance, Addam gets up and shuffles out the door, barefoot. Beneath the moonlight, he sees a man standing at the end of the dirt path, a silhouette so familiar that Addam thinks he may still be dreaming. Mikhail is there. He’s hugging the man, his small body visibly shaking even this far away, but the gesture isn’t reciprocated.

Jin just stands there, staring down at Mikhail.

Addam wants to call out to them but he doesn’t.

Then, Jin takes Mikhail by the hand and leads him away. Neither of them look back. Addam drags himself back inside and to his bed and cries himself to sleep.

The next day, he has Azurda fly him somewhere far away. The villagers ask where he’d gone, but Azurda keeps his mouth shut and simply shakes his head.

 

* * *

 

“Tragedy always makes a more compelling story,” Minoth explains. “People love to _suffer_ , but they don’t enjoy the stakes and consequences. So, they flock to the stories that let them have a good cry for a moment, then they can go back to their usual lives without a worry in the world.”

“Ah, sure…” The owner of Mymoma Playhouse looks somewhat skeptical, but he nods anyway. “Is this the only kind of thing you’d write for us?”

“Huh? Oh, ‘course not! I can also do comedies, drama, you name it.”

“Hmm.”

Minoth leans back in his seat, lips set in a thin line. How long has it been…? The world isn’t much different than it was back then, but his travels always bring new sights and happenings. Torigoth was bustling, the last time he visited Gormott. Indol finally calmed down and gave up on their search for Mythra. Addam had apparently disappeared. Mymoma Playhouse is looking for a new playwright.

Maybe it’s about time he took it easy, just for a while, to see how the events of this world continue to unfold.

The story is about two men who lost everything they loved. One sought to twist his own hope into something empty and cold, and the other lay down his armor and disappeared without a trace. Minoth still hasn’t decided on a title.

He thinks back to one of the stories he had come up with around a campfire beneath the stars. It was purely fictional— a nice, happy story about a boy who yearned to see the wonders of the world, because Haze was afraid of his ghost stories and Jin would get irritated if Minoth tried to be funny about it. Mythra would roll her eyes, and Hugo would chuckle heartily, and Milton would demand to know what happened next in that story about the wandering boy. His name was…

“You’re kind of an odd fellow,” the owner says, scrutinizing Minoth. “What’d you say your name was, again?”

Minoth offers an easygoing smile.

“Cole.”


End file.
